EKB News

KENTUCKY....

In an announcement at its Louisville Assembly Plant Thursday, Mark Fields, Ford Motor Co.'s president of the Americas, said the factory plans to hire 1,800 more employees, or nearly 5 percent of Ford's current U.S. work force, to build a new version of the Ford Escape small SUV. Ford will invest $600 million in a year-long renovation of the Louisville plant with the idea of shifting to smaller cars. The new Escape will be built on the Ford Focus car platform to boost fuel economy. The Louisville plant will reopen in late 2011, when it will be running on two shifts with 2,900 workers. Some of the 1,800 added workers will be new hires, but many will come from Ford plants where they have been laid off. The Louisville plant currently builds the Ford Explorer and employs 1,100 people on one shift. Over the next decade, Ford will get $240 million in tax incentives for the Louisville project from Kentucky and local governments.